Tuesday -Out and About Team Building | Wednesday -No studyhall -ART | Thursday -ELC | Friday -No studyhall Gretchen gone, Carol subbing -ART |
Important Upcoming Dates Jan. 15th--No school - MLK Day Jan. 19th--Gretchen gone, Carol subbing Jan. 25th & 26th -- No School - grading / end of semester February 1st -- O&A to Oregon Symphony February 2nd -- School-wide Geography Bee | Volunteer with Level 3 Click here to sign up:
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Reading: Read the newsletter Tuesday. Read a book of your choice the other nights.
Math: Daily math homework unless you are testing - check your child's agenda or contact teacher
Writing: Spelling assignment each night
Due dates: Turn in goal reflection and spelling by Friday
Our Tuesday Out & About was a real highlight. We had an amazing primitive skills workshop in the Backyard Garden - students practiced chopping kindling with a hatchet, carving fireboards, and using flint and steel or bow drills to start fires.
For our social science unit, Merlins formed five teams of soon-to-sail European colonists, and collaborated to earn the money they will need to stock their ships this coming week. We discussed what motivated early explorers, and practiced interpreting and drawing maps. (Mystery word this week - name the horizontal lines that measure North-South distances on maps.)
Ask What trait will you be bringing to the class this semester? Why?
Talk about What your Merlin is doing in the colonial simulation, and how it connects to real history.
Extend the learning by exploring maps and geography at home. Quiz yourself for geo bee!
Literacy
This week, students examined how writers develop rich, interesting characters by inventing specific details about their appearance, experiences and personality. We read examples of amazing character descriptions, breaking down how authors like J.K. Rowling and Charles Dickens show a character's personality through action and metaphor, instead of telling us what to think. We begin to develop our own characters as the first step towards writing a colonial-era historical fiction story.
Ask - What is interesting about your character? What haven't you figured out about them yet?
Talk about - What storybook character is memorable to you and why?
Extend the learning by reading aloud and discussing a character from a book.
5th Grade Math
Math students showed perseverance and flexibility as we practiced dividing and multiplying fractions this week. There are a lot of different steps to remember, but we realized that by thinking of fractions in picture models, we are able to check our work every time. We will be reviewing the test material on Tuesday, and testing Wednesday-Thursday this week!
Ask - which type of problem on the test will be most challenging? (Adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing?)
Talk about what's the difference between 4 divided by 1/2, 4 x 1/2, and 1/2 divided by 4?
Extend the learning at home by doubling or halving a recipe.
6th Grade Math
Our math talk this week focused on how Ancient Egyptians represented fractions--it was through unit fractions. So, 3/4 = 1/2+1/4. And, they didn't repeat unit fractions, 1/4 +1/4 +1/4 would not have worked. We looked at how to find an addition of two unit fractions to equal 2/7.
Ask, do you have any upcoming tests?
Talk about the importance of doing a proficiency check before moving onto the next lesson.
Extend the learning by looking at how to find fractions of fractions, like 3/4 of 7/8.